Nonprofits Making (And Wasting) Billions from Border Crisis, The COVID Policy STILL Killing Local Movie Theaters, "America's Most Popular Museum" Closing? (The Five for 05/24/24)
Plus, Blake Lively's new movie about domestic abuse looks like a must-see. This Gen-Z artist pulls from Sufjan Stevens, Atlanta Trap & Blink 182 to make a summer hit.
Hey, welcome to The Five, a publication about the stories that matter.
I wanted to be careful not to launch a podcast until I was sure I could keep it going week-to-week…and that day is today.
The Idea Podcast with Seth Tower Hurd is a new podcast diving into the kind of topics covered in this publication, in long form. The first guest is Allie Cluffalo (connect with her on Twitter), a Harvard alumna and writer for the American Conservative Coalition and ConservAmerica about the politically Conservative case for conservation. Allie recently got a lot of attention after being featured by popular Daily Wire YouTuber Brett Cooper (this episode)
The idea podcast will be on YouTube, Apple, Spotify and all podcast platforms shortly (probably today or tomorrow, processing is taking longer than I thought).
For now, you can listen right here:
[one]
Stand by as things get real stupid.
A flag that was on display during the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol was flown outside Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s vacation home in New Jersey, according to a report in the New York Times on Wednesday.
Citing photographs and interviews with neighbors, the Times reports that the “Appeal to Heaven” flag was seen on display at his property last summer. The flag, which has a history dating to the Revolutionary War, has also become a symbol for supporters of former President Donald Trump. The flag is white and includes a green evergreen tree and the words “An Appeal to Heaven” at the top.
Alito and the Supreme Court did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin, who has been a frequent critic of conservative justices, told CNN’s Kate Bolduan on Thursday that it “raises a serious question” for someone on the nation’s highest court to fly such flags at his residence and vacation home.
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence in this second instance. I think he’s speaking pretty clearly as to his political loyalties, and it’s a shame. When it gets right down to it, our courts and justices don’t have an army to enforce their opinions. They don’t have the money to establish an account for media control. What they have is the respect for integrity of the American people,” Durbin said.
First off, I try to hold (and write about) politicians with a more nuanced view than simply “he’s the dumbest person ever,” but Dick Durbin has been in Congress from my home state since I was in middle school, and is a lying, distrustful, garbage swamp monster, loathed by Republicans and Democrats alike, whom I know that have worked with him.
Was the flag present on January 6th? Not nearly as much as the American flag. Why isn’t Durbin calling to tear the Stars and Stripes down at all federal buildings? Is he tolerant of a “symbol of White Supremacy?”
I see a lot of hoodies under jackets, due to it being winter. Why are we not banning sweatshirts in response to January 6th? We’re pretty close to the “wait, you have a dog? You know who else had a dog? HITLER” line of reasoning here.
The flag literally designed around “The Tree of Peace,” aka it’s an anti-war symbol. Let’s go straight to Wikipedia here:
The pine tree has been symbolic in New England since the late 16th century, predating the arrival of colonists. After warring for decades, leaders of five nations—the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk—buried their weapons beneath a tree planted by the Iroquois Confederacy founder, the Great Peacemaker, at Onondaga. The "tree of peace" is featured in the center of the Hiawatha Belt, the Iroquois national belt, named for the Great Peacemaker's helper, Hiawatha.[3][4]
Colonists adopted the pine as a symbol on flags and currency in the 17th century, including variants of the flag of New England and coinage produced by the Massachusetts Bay Colony from 1652 to 1682.[5] Leading up to the Revolutionary War, the pine tree became a symbol of colonial ire and resistance as well as multi-tribal support of independence.[citation needed]
New England's eastern white pine was prized in the colonial shipbuilding industry for its quality and height. Following their 1620 arrival to Plymouth, the Pilgrims began harvesting the indigenous pines; two decades later, they began exporting the wood as far as Madagascar.[6]
And the “Appeal to Heaven” part? That’s from John Locke’s Second Treatise on Government.
And where the body of the people, or any single man, is deprived of their right, or is under the exercise of a power without right, and have no appeal on earth, then they have a liberty to appeal to heaven, whenever they judge the cause of sufficient moment. And therefore, though the people cannot be judge, so as to have, by the constitution of that society, any superior power, to determine and give effective sentence in the case; yet they have, by a law antecedent and paramount to all positive laws of men, reserved that ultimate determination to themselves which belongs to all mankind, where there lies no appeal on earth, viz. to judge, whether they have just cause to make their appeal to heaven.[9]
So, we can conclude that Illinois Senator Dick Durbin:
hates the Native peoples of this nation, or at least the eastern tribes.
hates God (after all, “an appeal to heaven” is quite literally a prayer).
is against anti-war, pro peace symbolism.
probably hasn’t read many books in general, and probably none on the founding of the country.
is a White Supremacist.
That, of course, is a very bad faith argument…but it lines up with Durbin’s bad faith arguments against Alito, so Durbin deserves equal treatment by the press. And the NY Times, once the finest paper in the world for fact-checking, couldn’t be bothered to pull up Wikipedia.
[two]
Some people, and by “some people” I mean nonprofit CEO’s, are getting RICH off the border crisis.
The Free Press investigates:
“The amount of taxpayer money they are getting is obscene,” Charles Marino, former adviser to Janet Napolitano, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security under Obama, said of the NGOs. “We’re going to find that the waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer money will rival what we saw with the Covid federal money.”
The Free Press examined three of the most prominent NGOs that have benefited: Global Refuge, Southwest Key Programs, and Endeavors, Inc. These organizations have seen their combined revenue grow from $597 million in 2019 to an astonishing $2 billion by 2022, the last year for which federal disclosure documents are available. And the CEOs of all three nonprofits reap more than $500,000 each in annual compensation, with one of them—the chief executive of Southwest Key—making more than $1 million.
And it’s not just CEO pay, but frivolous programs:
Some of the services NGOs provide are eyebrow-raising. For example, Endeavors uses taxpayer funds to offer migrant children “pet therapy,” “horticulture therapy,” and music therapy. In 2021 alone, Endeavors paid Christy Merrell, a music therapist, $533,000. An internal Endeavors PowerPoint obtained by America First Legal, an outfit founded by former Trump aide Stephen Miller, showed that the nonprofit conducted 1,656 “people-plant interactions” and 287 pet therapy sessions between April 2021 and March 2023.
Endeavors’ 2022 federal disclosure form also shows that it paid $5 million to a company to provide fill-in doctors and nurses, $4.6 million for “consulting services,” $1.4 million to attend conferences, and $700,000 on lobbyists. In 2021, the NGO shelled out $8 million to hotel management company Esperanto Developments to house migrants in their hotels. Endeavors, which gets 99.6 percent of its revenue from the government according to federal disclosure forms, declined to comment to The Free Press.
Keep in mind, we’re supposed to being helping refugees. So, if this money is going to be spent…we could just skip the music therapy and pay rent for an entire year for hundreds of families. Nothing against music therapy, but its not the base of Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs.
If there’s any justice, people would face prison time over this kind of fraud. But hey, America…they’ll likely get away with it.
[three]
As someone who REALLY wants the movie theater experience to survive…this hurts. A leftover COVID deal between movie studios and theater chains may kill this summer movie season.
It was supposed to be the blockbuster that jump-started 2024’s summer movie season. Instead, Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt’s comedic action flick, The Fall Guy, is first on the chopping block.
After just 17 days in theaters, and a below-projections $63 million in domestic box office—the rapturously reviewed, exhaustively promoted romp is now streaming (on what the industry dubs premium video on demand or PVOD), to be devoured for around $20 to $25 by intrigued but unmotivated moviegoers. It’s a harsh comedown from the epic high of last year’s Barbenheimer phenomenon, dashing hopes for a continued rekindling of pre-2019 ticket sales. When coupled with last weekend’s similarly underperforming IF, The Fall Guy’s early move to streaming may set off alarm bells. But it may not be a death knell for summer movie season as we know it. Instead, the fate of The Fall Guy appears to reflect recent shifts in the marketplace—and may only be sad news for The Fall Guy.
While Gosling’s latest is one of the more high-profile, high-budgeted films to get a simultaneous streaming release so soon into its theatrical run, this practice has become increasingly common. The 17-day figure was first established in July of 2020, when Universal and AMC struck a deal to shrink the theatrical window from its then-standard 90 days, to accommodate peak pandemic viewing habits. Four months later, after the surreal spectacle of a Christopher Nolan film slowly bombing in theaters, Universal concocted a more complicated arrangement with Cinemark. In this new deal, a flop could migrate to digital in 17 days, but any film that made at least $50 million in its opening weekend would have to play exclusively in theaters for five full weekends.
So…the movie industry is now chasing quick cash to mindlessly they’re TRAINING customers not to show up to the theater. This is headed to a very bad place. Local movie theaters are a staple to our communities, even though they’re largely run by mega corporations.
And we’re in grave danger of losing more of them.
There’s a lot of hype around Furiosa (trailer here) hitting theaters this weekend…let’s hope the Mad Max: Fury Road prequel can help turn things around.
[four]
Well, this is a strange one. The popular tourist attraction Graceland, home of the late Elvis Presley may…or may not…be ripped away from the Presley family. A private investment firm claim they can sell the iconic home after Presley’s late daughter, Lisa Marie, didn’t repay a loan to them before her death.
The company looking to auction off Elvis Presley’s Graceland has abandoned its plans to sell off the iconic estate after a Tennessee judge blocked the move earlier this week.
A representative for Naussany Investments & Private Lending LLC said it would withdraw its claims over the property Wednesday, shortly after a judge issued an injunction halting the foreclosure and hinted that Elvis’ granddaughter, Riley Keough, would likely win her lawsuit against the company.
Gregory Naussany, whose role with the firm was not immediately clear, told Reuters on Wednesday that the company would “be withdrawing all claims with prejudice” in the case, which centers on a $3.8 million loan that the company claims it gave Elvis’ daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, before her death in January 2023.
According to Naussany, the decision to not pursue the auction was made after consulting with lawyers and concluding the firm would have to file legal actions in multiple states since the alleged loan was secured in Florida.
Naussany Investments had planned to hold a foreclosure auction for the famous estate Thursday, claiming that Lisa Marie Presley offered up the popular tourist attraction as collateral for the loan.
But Keough, Lisa Marie’s eldest daughter and heir, fiercely contested the sale. She filed a lawsuit this week claiming her mother’s signature on them was forged and the company itself was a “false entity” set up to defraud the estate, which was voted the most popular museum in America in 2023.
In addition to protecting her family’s estate, Keough is a working actress, with credits that include Logan Lucky, The Good Doctor, Magic Mike and Mad Max: Fury Road.
[five]
As always, let’s head into the weekend with a pop culture roundup:
Dang…this looks incredible. Blake Lively (Gossip Girl, The Town) stars in this book-to-movie about a woman opening up a small business while enduring domestic abuse at home. “We break the pattern, or the pattern break us.” Dang.
In theaters August 19th.
Depending on who you believe, Henry Cavil (Justice League, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare) either quit The Witcher due to the showrunner ignoring the source material in the novels/video game series…or got fired for it. Either way, fans were not happy with Liam Hemsworth (The Hunger Games, Poker Face) stepped into the role of the famed platinum-haired monster hunter, but he certainly looks the part.
At one point, this was supposed to be Netflix’s Game of Thrones, but the series has managed to screw up a great story based on Polish lore time and time again.
[new music]
Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube Music
nothing,nowhere. represents the beloved fusion of 2000’s emo with hip hop, which has become rather beloved by Gen Z. The solo artist (real name, Joe Mulherin) pulls equally from indie darling Sufjan Stevens, acoustic hearthrob Dashboard Confessional, pop-punk mainstays Blink 182 and Fall Out Boy (while collaborating with both Travis Barker and Pete Wentz).
The first single off his upcoming 7th album in 9 years (dude stays busy) is one of my favorite songs of summer so far (fine, Memorial Day is Sunday—summer-ish).
And the grainy video, shot in the old 4:3 format, just hits me somehow.
Until the next one,
-sth